August 2023
I was working with a community member this past weekend, counseling and using my Rune reading method. As I read, a piece of wisdom jumped out at me that I have been ruminating on ever since. The reading was around strength and change and the line was:
Since self-change is never coerced– we are always free to resist–
remain mindful that the new life is always greater than the old.
At this time last year, we had just shattered the 5,000 sq ft space that was the other ⅔ rds of Breathing Room. At that time I was exhausted, grief-ridden and defeated having closed down what took me years- if not my entire career to build.
At that time I did not know what was next, so I allowed myself to just be in the grief and stillness. It took me almost an entire year to get out of that funk, to fully feel all the feels and to poke my head back up and out of it.
I am not sure about self-change never being coerced, but I do know that resistance to it can be super real. As humans we resist so much more than we realize. Most of all we resist giving ourselves the compassion that we both deserve and need.
In classes this past week I have taught to the importance of farmers letting their fields to allow dormant seasons for the soil to rest. If a field is planted every year, year after year, the crops will suffer because the soil has been leached of its nutrients. We, as energetic and emotional beings, are the same. We are conditioned and taught to produce. Produce work, ideas, products, families, events—and when one thing has been produced and reaped, carry on, replant and don’t stop until you are as successful and abundant as possible. And even then, keep going!
How many of us actually stop to let the landscape of our inner and outer lives go dormant? Rest? Enjoy what we have created? Create time for replenishing. I know that for many, many years I did not and when I was forced to after the closing of the space, I was leveled and depleted.
I have come to see now that the past year created a time for dormancy for me. A time where I did not need to plant, create or do more than what was in front of me in each moment. And as I look back now I can truly honor that “that the new life is always greater than the old.”
More often than not we do not pause, rest or give time to just be, because the old way of doing is so ingrained in us. We resist the pause because we fear we will not be productive or gain anything from doing nothing. However, I have found the opposite to be true. Giving yourself time to rest, to heal, to grieve can be the most valuable time you have ever needed. And when you have come to the end of that dormancy you may have grown into an entirely new version of yourself.
My mantra this month is to rest. To give myself the time to trust in the unfolding of life. And to also trust that the new life ahead of me will always be greater than the old.
I invite you to contemplate this and find rest where you can.
With all that being said I am doing the very European thing and taking the month of August to rest and be nourished. I will be back to teaching in September and am excited to plant and share the seeds I have collected from this last year with all of you!